What Once Was Lost
by EmmaSwan-Charming2
Summary: "The wishing well promises to restore what has been lost.  There are many, many things Emma Swan has lost in her life.  But what comes to mind is the most recent loss, the most searing wound, still not quite a scar."  Emma/Graham, featuring The Charmings
1. Iris

_A/N:__ So I couldn't resist anymore. I had to fic this fandom. I'm in a state of perpetual grief over Graham, and the Graham/Emma ship, and when they brought up that well a few episodes ago…I couldn't get this idea out of my head. I love Emma as a character, and I shipped these two so much. The Stranger (I call him Not Graham) isn't doing it for me, but oh well. I also love love love the family dynamic of The Charmings (esp. Mary Margaret and Emma), so I'll throw some of that in as well._

_This makes only a few slight changes to canon, starting with What Happened to Frederick and when the book is found. I'm planning on keeping it compatible with canon thus far…especially with the heart in the box from tonight's episode. If Henry doesn't at least make the Graham connection, I'll be severely disappointed (not that it could be his heart, as it's dust now but…you know, there is the fact that Regina keeps hearts in boxes)._

What Once Was Lost

"So this legend. It says that if you drink the water from the well…something lost will be returned to you."

The words tug at something in Emma's chest, but she ignores it, muffling the unnamed sensation with her suspicion of the stranger standing in front of her, and why he can so easily rattle off some obscure legend about a town he's never been to before.

Moments later, though, he directs her to a plaque by the well, and Emma feels a bit foolish for interrogating him, her eyes scanning the words spelling out the story for all to see.

_For centuries, local legend has claimed that mystical waters run beneath this great land. It is said that these waters possess the power to return that which is lost it its rightful place. If you have lose something precious to you, drink from this well and bear witness to this miracle as what is missing shall be returned. _

The tugging starts again, painful and insistent, somewhere around the phrase 'lose something precious'.

There are many, many things Emma Swan has lost in her life. But what comes to mind is the most recent loss, the most searing wound, still not quite a scar.

Emma folds her arms and steps away from the plaque. She can feel August watching her, but she avoids his light blue eyes, too consumed by the sudden, blinding memory of another pair of eyes, the soft, bruised blue boring into hers, seconds before the life drained out of them.

To her utmost irritation, tears thicken in Emma's throat, and she swallows against them as though she can swallow her own grief. By necessity, she has become an expert at fighting emotion.

So she lets August ramble on about the magic of water. She drinks from the supposedly mythical well, and tries not to envy her son's belief in magic, his firm conviction that everything evil and unfair in the world is the fault of a curse…a curse that can be broken.

~OUAT~

When Emma was eight, she was sent to live with her eleventh foster family. They were nicer than most, though the house was a little crowded: four other foster kids, plus two of the couples' real children.

There was a tree in the yard, a huge one, the kind with branches starting at the base of the trunk, and huge leaves, so the whole thing looked like an enclosure.

They weren't supposed to climb it, because it was so old, and some branches were dead. But Emma always did it, anyway; that tree was her spot, the only place she could go when the house felt too suffocating. She would climb higher and higher every day, savoring the quiet, the solitude. But she was always careful, always holding at least two branches at once, because she could never guess when the one she was standing on would drop out beneath her.

These days, grief is like that. Most of the time, she can climb just fine. She can be the sheriff. She can work toward being the hero Henry needed. She can be a friend for Mary Margaret. Most days, Emma feels steady; on solid ground.

Then, without warning, there are cracks beneath her feet, and without warning the world falls out from under her and she's falling right back into it, into the sadness that threatens to engulf her, toward the hard, painful crash landing that leaves her shaky and aching for days after.

Today, after the unmagical water at the painfully ordinary well, feels like the worst fall, the time she shattered all the bones in her shoulder, the injury that got her moved to different, meaner foster parents without a yard or a tree, the ones who claimed they were more willing to deal with a girl in a sling.

Emma retreats into her room the moment she gets home, closing and locking the door even though Mary Margaret doesn't seem to be home.

Opening the door to her closet, Emma slides the jacket from its hook on the door; _his _jacket. Shrugging off her own, Emma wraps herself in the soft, familiar leather and closes her eyes, breathing in Graham's scent, that curious combination of snow and pine and a hint of aftershave.

She does not pull the jacket out often, for fear of losing that scent. It has become a desperate measure for desperate times.

Today definitely qualifies. Emma tightens the jacket around her and curls on her bed. Tears stab at her eyes like tiny, hot daggers, and in spite of her solitude, Emma squeezes her eyes shut against them, swallowing against the sobs building in her throat.

It has been nearly a month since she has cried over him, since the jacket was liberated from its spot in the closet. Emma mentally runs through her usual scolding…_barely knew him_ and _only a kiss_, sometimes with a _nothing I could have done_ thrown in. None of it does her any good.

A few hours later, Emma has pulled herself together. The jacket is back in the closet. When Mary Margaret comes home, curled on her own bed and crying without trying to disguise it, Emma is able to put aside all concern for herself. She is standing on solid ground again, steady and certain.

Until, of course, the next time the branch below her cracks.

~OUAT~

A few days after her trip to the wishing well, Emma gets another few hours with Henry. This visit is unsanctioned by Regina, unlike their half hour ice cream trip a few weeks ago.

But Henry bursts into the sheriff's office, gleeful because Regina is in a council meeting, which he assures Emma always lasts _forever_.

"Besides," he tells her with a grin. "We've got a lot of catching up to do on Operation Cobra. Right?"

Henry's smile is infectious, and Emma can't help but mirror it with one of her own. She's so happy to see him, and the adoration shining in his eyes makes her heart feel like it's too big for her chest.

"That's right, kid," she tells him, standing up from her desk. "Actually, there's a place I've been wanting to show you."

~OUAT~

"…and bear witness to this miracle as what is missing shall be returned." Henry straightens up as he finishes reading the plaque. He beams at her. "_Awe_some."

Emma smiles at him fondly. Once she'd forcibly dismissed her own reaction to the wishing well's legend as completely uncalled for, she'd realized that it would be the kind of story her son would love.

"So what do you think? Anything about this in your book?"

The boy screws up his face in concentration. "I don't remember anything about the _well_, exactly, but there's definitely a magic lake." He frowns, frustration slipping into his tone. "If I hadn't lost the book, I could remember exactly…" Suddenly, Henry's face lights up. "The book! This is how we get it back. The water returns things you've _lost_." He peers eagerly into the well. "Did you bring cups?"

"Whoa, slow down." Emma touches him on the shoulder. "I don't think it works anymore, kid. I drank the water a few days ago, and believe me, I haven't found anything that's lost." There's another stab to her gut, as Graham's face flashes in her mind. Emma grits her teeth, angry at herself.

Henry looks disappointed. He stares down the well again, a look of concentration on his face, like he's searching for answers in the water's reflection.

After a moment, Henry twists around to look at her, bright eyed and flushed. "I got it! It's a _wishing_ well. Maybe…we have to wish first."

"What?"

"Do you have any change?"

It takes Emma a beat to realize what he's asking. Obliging, she rummages around in her wallet and produces a handful of coins.

Henry plucks two pennies from her palm. "That's enough." As soon as Emma replaces the other coins in her pocket, Henry thrusts one of the pennies back at her. "Here, you take one."

She does, absently worrying to tiny copper circle between her fingers. "You know, the plaque doesn't saying anything wishing with pennies."

Henry shrugs, unbothered. "Yeah, but…it's a wishing well. This is just…what you do." He lifts his gaze to look at her. "Right?"

Emma shrugs, turning to face the well beside her son. "No harm in trying."

Henry bends his thumb and balances the penny against his knuckle, closing his eyes. Emma knows he's wishing for the return of his book. She slides her gaze to her own penny, her throat narrowing.

She doesn't want to indulge this idea, even for a moment. She doesn't want to wish.

But the truth is, she never stops wishing. Every day, every second since he died in her arms, some part of Emma has been wishing that Graham would come back.

Together, she and her son flip their coins into the air, watch them rise and then fall, descending into the water, carrying their wishes, their memories of what's been lost.

"_Now_ we drink it."

Henry helps her pull up the bucket, and they make cups with their hands, just enough to sip the water.

"Well," Emma says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Should we go search for the book?"

"I don't think we have to," Henry replies. "If the wish works…it should just come back to us."

"If the wish works…" Emma repeats, her voice soft. She squeezes her son's shoulder. "Even if it doesn't work…I'm still looking, kid. I haven't given up." She pauses, then clarifies, for herself more than him, "On the book, I mean."

~OUAT~

"Emma! Emma!"

It's the day after their excursion to the wishing well, and Emma has barely had time to register Henry's presence in the office when he's in front of her desk, thrusting something at her. "It worked! I found it!"

"What the…" Emma stares down at the thick book being thrust into her hands. She traces her fingers over the title: ONCE UPON A TIME. "Where was it?"

"Out in the street, under your car!" Henry's words are tripping over each other. "I just walked by, and there was a box in the street, right up against the tire, so I opened it, and the book was inside."

Emma arches an eyebrow, giving him a look. "_Really_, kid? It was just lying in the street."

Henry holds her gaze, eyes flashing with a challenge. "Use your superpower. See if I'm lying." When Emma doesn't answer, he adds, "The box is still out there. I can show you."

"No, it's…I believe you." Emma keeps staring down at the book, like it's a figment of her imagination.

"See? The wishing well worked. Something lost was returned to me." Henry pauses, watching his mother stare down at the book like she can't quite believe it's real. "What did _you_ wish to get back? I bet it works for you, too."

To avoid answering, Emma flips the book open to a random page, checking its authenticity.

She finds herself staring down at a drawing of the huntsmen, having his heart ripped out by an evil queen.

There's a catch in her voice when she answers, "No, kid. What I lost…it's not something I can get back."

Henry glances from Emma to the page and back again. Tentatively, he ventures, "Are you…talking about Sheriff Graham?"

The book slams shut, and Emma whips around to look at him, eyes blazing. "Of course not."

"Because…we don't know how the curse affects someone who dies. No one was ever supposed to, since time was frozen," Henry explained earnestly. "When we break the curse…he could be back in the fairy tale world. He could be there now, even!"

"Henry," Emma's voice is sharp, the words like shards of glass in her throat. "Graham is _dead_. He isn't coming back, and he's not…waiting in some fairy tale land. You shouldn't say things like that, it's _mean_."

The boy blinks up at her, wide eyed and pale. Already guilt twists Emma's stomach, but she can't look at him as she hands the book back. "You should go; your mom will be worried."

"Sorry," Henry mumbles shakily as he turns to go.

Hot shame burns in her gut, and Emma manages to reply, "It's okay, kid. I'll see you soon," with just enough softness that Henry knows she isn't really angry at him.

She's only angry at her inability to believe what he's saying could possibly be true.


	2. Signs

_A/N:_ Hey guys! Thanks to everyone who put this story on their favorites and alerts, and especially thanks to those who reviewed. I love hearing what you guys think, so keep it coming. Chapter title and lyrics come from "Signs" by Bloc Party.

Chapter Two

_I see signs now all the time that you're not dead, you're sleeping  
>I believe in anything that brings you back home to me<em>

Wolves make three distinct types of howls.

There's the locating howl, which gives the whereabouts of any pack in the area. It's how the wolves keep track of each other when the pack separates temporarily, and also how they keep tabs on rival packs. Then there's the defensive howl, which is a little deeper. It's a wolf's version of _keep out_; their method of protecting their territory and the pack that occupies it. The final type is the rallying howl, long and mournful, used when a pack member is lost.

The huntsman knows these howls; they had been his first language. Now, as he moves stealthily through the forest, the familiar, distant timbre of a locating howl reaches his ears, echoing through the trees. He pauses; it's the howl of his pack, the one he often joins, as distinctive to his ears as a human voice.

He takes a deep breath, filling his lungs, holding it; then, he sends his own howl back, a near perfect replica, letting the wolves know that he's still in the forest.

He can't help smiling at little as he lifts an arrow from his quiver. It's taken some time for his skills to return. Twenty eight years without hunting, without howling…his instincts had gone rusty.

Twenty eight years. Only now can he feel every second of those years, realize how long he'd spent trapped in a monotonous, unchanging haze. Ironic that the cruelty of the curse was only evident when it was finally broken.

Broken for him, anyway. The huntsman has not seen another human being in all the months since he returned to the enchanted forest. His life here had always been one of solitude, but never to this extent.

Still, it is a blessing, in a way. His last few years here, before the curse, had been spent trapped under the thumb of the Evil Queen, confined to the castle, indulging her every whim.

It is a relief to be out in his woods again, finally free.

Except.

His time under the curse, all twenty eight years of it, isstill vivid. And it is proving hard to shake.

He's worried about the others, and his inability to bridge the two worlds frequently frustrates him, leaves him cursing his own uselessness..

For the most part, though, those twenty eight years in Storybrooke had left little to mourn.

Except…those last few months. Those months, Graham misses.

_Graham._ The name repeats in his mind, always in her voice, and it makes his chest ache with longing.

He'd never been given a name in this world; the wolves have no use for them. Now, though, the huntsman can't shake it.

When he's alone in the forest, h imagines her, saying his name, all the different ways she ever said. Exasperation that tried to mask her amusement when he teased her. Soft around the edges and laced with comfort, that last day, trying to show him his own heartbeat.

And at night, when he's struggling to sleep, he hears her voice, terrified and desperate, her voice breaking around his name, the last thing he heard before he slipped into some sort of void.

_Emma_.

He whispers her name quietly and reverently, like a prayer, though there's no one around to hear him.

He runs his hands through his hair, frustrated. The huntsman used to be happy in the forest, the quiet and the stillness, broken only by the animals. He never needed anything more.

Now, though, constant longing courses through his veins, breathes down his neck, scratches at his throat. There is a hollow ache in his gut, and time hasn't begun to heal it.

Never in his life has the huntsman – _Graham_ – felt such a need for another human being.

And maybe that is the real curse.

Frustrated, Graham tilts back his head, rounds his mouth into an O, and lets loose a rallying howl. It holds everything he does not have the words for, a low, intense distillation of grief, all poured into one empty, swelling minor note of yearning.

~OUAT~

Sometimes Emma wakes up in the middle of the night from nightmares she can't remember, with his name scratching at her throat, and the low, mournful howl of a wolf throbbing in her ears.

It happens tonight; it's after three a.m. when she snaps awake, sweaty and shaking, her heart pounding with a vaguely, irrational sense of panic.

It takes a few moments for her to breathe normally again, and then Emma stumbles into the bathroom, flicking on the light to splash cold water on her face. The light is disorienting in its brightness, and it takes a moment before Emma can stare at herself in the mirror. Her reflection is wild-eyed and frightened looking.

A few minutes later, when she's curled back under cool sheets, sleep eludes her. Thankfully, she manages to banish the wolf's howl from her mind, but tonight, there is enough going on in reality to occupy her thoughts.

~OUAT~

Mary Margaret Blanchard eats lunch alone now.

She used to sit in the cafeteria, at a table full of other teachers, but over the last few weeks, it had been made clear she was no longer welcome. Frosty silences over and cutting glances over stale sandwiches had turned the lunches into something she dreaded.

So now, Mary Margaret stayed in her classroom, eating by herself. It was a lonely arrangement, an eight hour school day without an ounce of adult conversation, but it beat the alternative.

As she unwraps the bag lunch she'd brought, Mary Margaret finds herself thinking that it could be worse. If this had happened less than a year ago, the teacher might be going days, weeks even, without a friendly word from an adult, rather than mere hours.

She has never been more grateful for Emma's presence.

She smiles a little, thinking about her roommate and unlikely best friend. Emma is tough and guarded, never the most affectionate friend in either words or gestures, but Mary Margaret can't imagine anyone being more steadfastly loyal.

Mary Margaret is still thinking about Emma when Henry sticks his head in her classroom door, as though the strength of the boy's adoration for his mother is such that he can sense her presence even in someone's thoughts. "Miss Blanchard?"

"Come on in, Henry," Mary Margaret tells him with a warm smile. The boy immediately bounds forward, pulling a chair up across from her and swinging his lunchbox onto her desk.

"Can I talk to you about something?"

His face is utterly serious, and for a wild moment Mary Margaret panics with the thought that he's heard something about the David and Katherine business. "Um, of course."

"It's about Emma," he tells her, and Mary Margaret immediately relaxes. "And also Sheriff Graham."

At that, Mary Margaret goes tense again, not sure where Henry could be going with that. "Alright…"

Henry leans forward, expression earnest. "Well, Graham told me that he kissed Emma. And he said when he did, he started to get memories back." Unsurprisingly, Henry plops his book down on the desk, flicking through the pages until he finds the right one. "He was remembering that he was the huntsman."

"Henry," Mary Margaret begins gently. "Honey, Graham was sick that day. He was weak, and feverish, and he didn't know what he was saying."

"But he was _right_," Henry insists. "He remembered all of it, without ever seeing my book." He punctuates the sentence by slamming the book shut, shaking his head impatiently. "But that's not the point is…the point is, when the queen killed him-"

"Henry," Mary Margaret reminds him patiently. "What happened to Graham was horrible, and it was tragic, but no one killed him. He had a heart attack."

"Exactly! That's what it _looked_ like. Because before the curse, the queen took the huntsman's heart. And Graham was remembering that, so she used it to kill him." Henry shoots her an almost pitying look, like his teacher is actually a small child who's being slow on the uptake. "But the _point is_…the curse was starting to lift from Graham. _And _she killed him using magic from before the curse. _And _she was never supposed to have to kill anyone, because time was frozen." Henry draws a breath, clearly leading to his big finish. "So we don't know what happened to him when he died. He could be back when we break the curse. Or he maybe even isn't really dead now."

Mary Margaret is quiet for a long moment, her throat tight. It's a tightrope walk, really, keeping Henry's imagination and hope alive while still keeping him aware of some sense of reality.

Finally, Mary Margaret leans forward and meets the boys eyes, her gaze wide and serious. "You're right, Henry. There's a lot we don't know about what happens after death. But can you do me a favor?" He nods, waiting. "Don't talk about this to Emma. Not just yet, alright?"

She expects him to question this, but Henry just nods. "I know. That's why I'm telling _you_." Henry goes quiet for a moment, his eyes downcast. "Emma got upset when I first tried. She said it was mean."

"Oh, honey, she wasn't really mad at you. Emma…she doesn't like to talk about him. She misses him, and I think right now…talking just makes it harder."

"I know," Henry acknowledges. He pauses, then ventures, "Did she _love_ Sheriff Graham?"

Mary Margaret hesitates for a few seconds before answering honestly, "I don't know. But I think she could have."

Henry leans back in his chair, his face set, a storm in his eyes. In that moment, he looks much, much older than ten. Finally, he straightens a little and declares firmly, "Alright. I won't say anything to Emma. I don't want to make her more sad."

Mary Margaret looks relieved, and she pats him on the arm. Privately, though, Henry thinks it's time Operation Cobra had a side project, one only he knows about.

The magic well is probably already at work at finding Graham. But there's no reason Henry can't try to investigate on his own.


End file.
